Avoiding the MySpace Mistake: A Reply to A Business Week Article

BusinessWeek.com posted an article about MySpace.com and the mistakes a company can make entering the world of MySpace, the article lists 8 points. While I think they hit the nail on the head with a two of the points, the article is horribly wrong on some others. I decided to address them point by point, giving you the point of view from someone that actually has used MySpace to create viral campaigns for businesses, not points given to reporters by general marketing “experts”.

1) Forget the hard sell.

An obvious point, you don’t want to jam your product down the throat of people by spamming them or immediately pushing it on them. BusinessWeek did get the general idea right but missed the mark the further they went into it. They expanded on the idea more by saying you should get in the practice of giving items away, be it “a free screensaver, a chef’s exclusive recipe, or a roundup of upcoming local events.”

I agree that you have to offer people something in order for them to come back to your profile. But why not expand on this and say that you can use your content from your webpage as a teaser: use press releases, articles, pictures, videos… Any media you have from your webpage should be applied as a teaser on myspace, be it in blog or bulletin format with a direct link to your site or product. Don’t just give things away to give them away, use them as a tease to gain traffic or business.

Don’t have a website for your business? How about doing a special “myspace friends only” promotion, where they get a discount by printing something from your MySpace page. Giving away items for the sake of giving it away won’t provide you with results.

BusinessWeek missed the mark by not expanding on this point and not providing a worthwhile direction.

2) Do your homework.

BusinessWeek writes that you basically need to understand the way the community works… common sense but their answer is such an incomplete answer. MySpace is like any other community, there are subcultures within the community, you need to examine the subculture you want to be apart of and understand how they are different from others. Are you just going to create a profile and add friends, that is one thing, or maybe you want to become active in groups about your subject area, well that means you need to change your focus and behavior. Maybe you are going to blog and look to engage people while talking about your service and product, expanding your readership and hoping to convert them into customers. How you act in blogs on MySpace versus groups or forums are totally and utterly different, they are separate sub cultures, just like people in your real life community behave in a different fashion with different rules.

3) Focus on a few contacts.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… and um, wrong. MySpace users are fickle, people go through cycles of use with it: the amount they use it, the pages they frequent, and how they use the site in general. If you focus on a small group you are shooting yourself in the foot. With MySpace and it’s search features you can target market people, with additional software you can keep a database of people you should invite to your profile.

Let’s say you own a bar or restaurant, do a search on people within a 20 mile radius and start adding. Your goal is to reach as many people as possible, sure you may have to spend more time interacting with people (see point 4) but it will be worth it in the long haul by building a loyal base.

The idea of focusing on a few contacts is faulty. When you go fishing to you cast your line into the lake once and focus on trying to do the most with that one line? No. Why would you do the same with your viral marketing?

4) Listen before you speak.

“Networking is a two-way conversation.” This is one of two things that Businessweek.com really got right, be prepared to spend time replying to messages and answering questions. People are on social networking websites to interact, in order for you to get the most out of the profile you can’t just let it sit there with your only interaction being posting blogs and bulletins. You have to reply to messages and you have to get involved with people, there is no way around it if you want success.

5) Authenticity counts.

Wrong, the appearance of authenticity counts. I will get into this topic more about putting a face on your business with my case study but let’s just say as long as your interact and your profile appears authentic you will be fine.

However, BusinessWeek was right in warning against spamming, and that you will get deleted if you do so. Mass messaging or commenting with a link to your website is a sure fire way to get your account nuked by the powers that be.

6) Be engaging.

I think this ties in with number 4 and the content answer in number 1, so I am going to skip this after reinforcing the idea that you need to give them a reason to come back to your page be it with content, interaction, or both.

7) Always follow up. 7. Integrate your other collateral with your MySpace address.

I don’t like the title BusinessWeek used for this point so I am going to change it. BusinessWeek says, “your MySpace address should be visible on your other printed materials, your Web site, and in your physical storefront, in order to ‘close the loop.’”

I am mixed with this idea because if your whole goal is to point people to your webpage or store why would you point the people that come into your store or to your site away from it? On the other hand, this is giving you customer another way to interact with you. It is another point of contact for you and your customer to come together… I guess this is going to vary on your point of view.

8) Think long term.

This is the best point that they made in the article, it takes time and patience to build your network, it will take a couple of months of work to gain a good sized network. If you can devote half an hour to an hour a day on it the rewards will be worth it.

I want to thank BusinessWeek for giving me a topic but next time they want to consult a social networking expert, well, um… cough. Get in touch with someone that has a better understanding. :)

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